Reducing the Depth of Lion’s Spacers – Wood & Minerva

[Bagel Framer]

Hi all,

I have an enquiry to make a box frame that has three shelves in it, so matey can see his U-Boat moulds.

Should I get the order then I’ll need to reduce the widths of Lion’s spacers as some are too wide (will touch the glass) and some are too narrow so I need a happy medium – I could glue two together but that would look potentially crabby.

Re. the trimming of the spacers along their length – I like to think I’m relatively “tooled up” as I have a Router and a filthy great Circular Saw but both of these would result in lost fingers were I to employ these.

Has anyone else ever had any reason to trim these spacers, if so what do you use?

I can think of the following as options (they must be capable of trimming Minerva too):

Scroll Saw
Miniature Circular Saw
Band Saw
Planer

Granted I’ll probably not use it much, but like most of my stuff it would come in handy in the future.

I need something dinky….!

Thanks,

Sean

[framemaker]

Axminster do a range of mini saws for model making; a table, band, fret, and chop saw that are all very dinky!

Having said that I have trimmed spacers down on my table saw before without the loss of any fingers, but if they are very small and only a small amount needs to be removed I think I would use a plane.

[framejunkie]

I use a thicknesser for such tasks

Here's one -

http://www.axminster.co.uk/product-DeWa ... 577405.htm

Much cheaper to buy one second hand on ebay - there are always a few there

To use a thicknesser like the one above to trim down spacer you will probably need to make a jig, which will take a while but once done it will always be there.(CAUTION! This is probably against health and safety rules so you do it at your own risk. I've been doing it for years and i still have 2 eyes and 10 fingers - am i good or am i just lucky?)

[prospero]

I would say a bandsaw is the ideal weapon. It's safer and they have finer teeth so you get a neater cut than a circular saw.

Wish I had one.

And a thicknesser.

And a router table too.

[Roboframer]

You could glue two together and clamp them while they dry, then wrap them in felt or something.

Or you could make a shelf unit that screws to the wall and a stacked frame that slides over it so the items can be removed/changed around. The same method could be made permanent in which case it could be hung in the normal way.

limogé.jpg

[Bagel Framer]

Thanks for your comments so far - Proxxon do a "Miniature Circular Saw KS 230 E" that looked ideal as it cuts 8mm thick wood and has diffferent blades. Unfortunately though it only cuts 3mm plastic, so that takes it out of the equation as far as Minerva goes anyway.

I only referred to Minerva as matey chose the Gold Minerva Deep Rebate frame and associated spacer - there's nothing to say I can't make it of the Bare Obeche equivalent then paint it gold - on that basis the Proxxon is back in the frame.

I've looked at Fret Saws but they don't seem to have a straight edge upon which to guide the spacer...?

All this is hypothetical as the slightly weird customer doesn't want to spend big bucks, so my figure of about £80 a frame that I'm thinking of at the moment is probably too much, in which case his moulds can go back in his jiffy bag

[Bagel Framer]

....incidentally, I'm not all that clued up on thicknessers but as I've said after changing the depth of a spacer.

Using Lion's L956 as an example, that's 6mm x 19mm - I'd like to be able to make it 6mm x 10mm for instance, therfore a miniature circular saw would do it, as would any smallish saw as long as it's got a straight edge guide.

[danchip1]

with a piece of timber 6mm thick it would be very straight forward to plane it down with a hand held smoothing plane, just mark the line and plane down to it. especially easy on short bits. A smoothing plane will set u back between £10 and £50, you'll get what u pay for.
If you really want to live dangerously, you could do it with an electric plane
Alternatively try a local friendly joinery shop or shop around in different DIY/builder's/timber merchants, you might get what you want from the shelf
Good luck

[Bagel Framer]

Thanks all - I borrowed an electric planer off the F-I-L in the end and it's worked a treat on a test piece, so no need to buy another saw at present.

I just need to ring the customer now and give him my prices which are:

£84.00 for a four shelf box frame in Lion's Deep Rebate Moulding. Approx size of the frame 1.5ft x 1ft - small metal boat moulds go on these shelves.

£97.00 for a box frame in Lion's Smaller Deep Rebate Moulding. Approx size of the frame 0.5ft x 2ft - this is to house approx 40 American Civil War buttons.

A nice bit of work - may seem a lot, but it's a lot of fiddly work plus a load of labelling hence my costs...!